The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-14
MALIGNANT JUNIORS.
The Horrible Disease that Killed a Res
ident of North st. Louis.


From. the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
Henry ALLEY, a well-known saloon-keeper
of the northern part of the city, died in great
pain yesterday afternoon from the effects
of malignant carbuncle, disease which,
wherever it has appeared, has puzzled the
doctors and baffled all the medical skill
which has attempted to stop its always fatal
progress. Alleys saloon was on the corner
of Broadway and Angelrodt street He was
man 40 years old, stout and healthy,
and had been moderate drinker for years.
Seven weeks ago a swelling appeared on the
back of his neck, red, and very painful to
the touch. He supposed it was an
ordinary boil, and paid it little at
tention at first. The lump grew larger, and
the area affected by the soreness in
creased. He began to complain of shooting
pains radiating from the tip of the swelling,
and his whole neck began to stitfen and ache
He then sent for a physician, who pro-
nounced the boil carbuncle and treated it.
Alleys condition, however, was not i'm
proved by the medical attention, the appli-
cations to his neck or the internal medicines
The carbuncle increased in size rapidly, and
every day more of the neck became involved
in its painful growth. He could not sleep
at all, and all the functions of his body be-
came disordered The pains darting from
head and down into his back and chest, and
he had to be put into condition of
complete insensibility before he could
obtain relief from them. Other ply
sicians were summoned in consultation
with the first, and the disease
was pronounced malignant carbuncle 1t
had obtained deadly hold upon the system
of the saloon-keeper by this time, and his
progress toward Death was sure. Swellings
20 hoo md OH
small Jumps the size of pea at first, ex-
quisitely painful, each one the centre of a
circle of shooting pain. When lanced each
of these carbuncles showed a small, hard
core. They grew larger and their number
increased every day. The patient was con-
stantly delirious and in awful pain. The
carbuncles on the back and chest grew to
the number of eighty and then the ex-
hausted vitality of the patient succumbed
to the disease, and he died His body, when
death had ended his sufferings, was emacia-
ted and his features sunken so that the ac-
quaintances who came to the house to offer
the family their sympathy were unable to
recognize it.
Malignant carbuncle is blood disease so
rare that nine of ten physicians have never
seen it, and it is rarely discovered and
treated inteligently until it has planted its
roots in the system of the patient. After
that treatment has always been hopeless,
and physicians have found that all they
could do was to alleviate the suffering of
the moribund person. Medical reports have
no mention of the disease attacking a
woman, and the men whose cases have been
noted are those of full habit, plegmatic
disposition and the blonde type. The most
celebrated case which has been discussed by
the medical authorities in this country was
that of New York alderman, who died
last year. His symptoms from the begin
ming were precisely those of Alleys, but
with him the disease ran its course in a
shorter time, and he died in less than a
month.